Research group at imec & Vrije Universiteit Brussel

News

Karl-Filip Coenegrachts appointed as Chair of Open & Agile Smart Cities

SMIT project leader/manager Karl-Filip Coenegrachts was appointed as the new Chair of the board of Open and Agile Smart Cities (OASC), as Martin Brynskov of Aarhus University stepped down from the position to become the Tech Lead in the board.

Open & Agile Smart Cities is a network that connects cities and communities worldwide to learn from each other and exchange digital, data-driven solutions. OASC is creating sustainable impact for the member cities by working towards a common technical ground for cities & communities – based on open standards, open APIs, and shared data models. This common technical ground is called the Minimal Interoperability Mechanisms.

OASC represents their members towards international institutions, fora and standards developing organisations to ensure that their voice is heard when new standards come about.

Open & Agile Smart Cities launched in March 2015. Its founders, Aarhus University, Business Tampere, Connected Places Catapult, and imec (Pieter Ballon), had realised that innovation resulting from publicly-funded projects usually hit a dead-end soon after the funding stopped with frustration on both the demand and supply-side. What was – and still is – missing was a global market that makes it possible to share solutions between cities that are facing similar challenges, while respecting their different cultural, economic, social, and technical structures. Today, OASC represents a diverse community of cities from Europe over Argentina to Japan.